Bugbeer

Leavenworth Biers, a.k.a. Fish Brewing Company (no link as their site is throwing security warnings), decided to break the norms and make their own style. “Specialty”  or “alt” beer is it’s own category in the BJCP guidlines. Any beer that doesn’t meet the traditional categories qualifies. Essentially alt beer is something you made up on your own.

Altbier can be amazing - Midas Touch comes to mind – but as is so often the case, there’s a reason why beer has styles: after a few hundred years, brewers have found what tastes good.

8 Mile Alt is watery, bitter and bland. There is no malt to support the bitterness and no hop character to justify it. They advertise it as a session beer, but give you no reason to drink more than one. Go drink a Monk’s Blood instead.

Reviewing beers in a can today. Never discount a brew because of its packaging as both of these are worthy concoctions.

Oskar Blues Brewery, famous for their Scottish brew, Old Chub, continues to  be one of the best beers in a can with Mama’s Little Yella Pils. A true pilsner (i.e. not the excuse of a beer Anheuser-Busch makes) this golden beauty is both malty and refreshing. A strong malt character with decent hop lend this smooth lager a bit more teeth than many other Czech siblings. A very easy drinking but never boring summer beer. Tote this potable on your fishing trips and picnics. It’s fantastic for hot summer days and the can makes it easier to manage.

The best beer in a can, and I think one of the best beers period, has to go to 21st Amendment Brewery’s Monk’s Blood.

Cover the eyes of the impressionable dear readers.

Holy shit.

This is an amazing, amazing beer.

Officialy a Belgian dark ale brewed with cinnamon, oak chips, vanilla and figs (yes figs! I hate figs.) this beer rises to single malt scotch levels of complexity. The nose boasts a sweet smell with a hint of cinnamon. Initial contact is a surprisingly smooth ale with a slight cintrusy tang of hop and phenol.

Swish it around a bit and think about it.

No one flavor comes to the forefront. At first I thought the amount of adjuncts for this beer was overkill. Now I realize it would be like telling da Vinci he used too many colors for the Mona Lisa. This beer is a single unified whole.

This beer is a masterpiece.

Caramely Belgian crystal malts and sugar, mild aftertastes of spice, brief high notes of citrus. It is a symphony in a can. Monk’s Blood not only has taken the place of best beer in a can in my mind, but one of the best beers I have ever tasted. If I could reach through this screen and grab you by the throat, I would be pouring this down your gullet as we speak.

Drink this beer.

Don’t think about what it is. Don’t think about what it contains. Simply think about each mouthful you take. You will be surprised every time.

I must preface this:  I love porter. It allows you too get all the wonderful tastes of a stout with the drinkability of an amber. I love session beers. Porters, with their dazzling array of possible flavors, make great session beers.

That said, Odell Brewing Co.’s Cutthroat porter was pretty blah.

It’s a porter.

Thats about it. Low bitterness and malt made it easy to drink but so did the lack of any defining characteristics.

It’s a porter.

That’s really all I can say. Well done on successfully making a porter Odell. There’s absolutely no reason for me to buy it again, but sure, you made a porter.

A porter is a blank canvass that you can paint pretty much any flavor you want on to. Odell Brewing Co. just left the canvass blank.

The “Extra Special Golden” appears to be some sort rye bock. Terminal Gravity doesn’t give much info on their website, but it reminds me a great deal of Sierra Nevada’s Glissade.  TG seems to be taking the approach of doing a few beers well. They have a limited selection of amazing beer and the ESG is a shining example. The first sip makes you want to chug the whole beer. The malt is satisfying and the rye just enough to be crisp. The hop character isn’t noticeable, making for a very clean taste. The name is appropriate. It certainly feels like a golden cousin of one of my favorite styles, extra special bitter (particularly this one). My wife loved it (and she isn’t a beer person), I loved it, my 8 month old son loved it. Grab this if you can(fellow Moscovites can find it at the Co-op).

A fun collection of the author’s label favorites. Stone is conspicuously absent though.

http://aleheads.com/2011/04/07/labelmania/

Ninkasi is the Sumerian goddess of beer. Recent upstart Ninkasi Brewing Company, with their array of such beers as Tricerahops and Total Domination IPA, are producing brews worthy of the goddess.

American pale ales are a tricky breed. Defined by a lighter body and hoppy character, there isn’t much room for error. Too much malt makes it cloying and sweet and too much hop feels like the enamel is being burned from your teeth (as well as just tasting nasty). A good pale should have enough malt to serve as a base for complex but not overpowering hop character. Spring Reign walks the fine line beautifully. It has has a solid slightly sweet malt flavor setting the stage for the hops to star. The hop character is strong but not overpowering, and finishes with bright citrusy tones.

My one gripe is the claim it’s a session beer. At 6%, drinking a series of these would would not leave one ready to return to the shell factory. Rather a good lie down would be in order.